


been depending on the overgrown

by creativesuperhero



Series: we're livewires [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Immortality Talk, M/M, Magnus' POV, Post 1x13, Set in Show!Verse, Sort of? - Freeform, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 06:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6644209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creativesuperhero/pseuds/creativesuperhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Alexander, I may be the High Warlock of Brooklyn... but even I can't see the future." </i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>A possible aftermath of the finale between Magnus and Alec. The first part to a possible series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	been depending on the overgrown

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm finally posting this! Wow, this took way longer than it should of but I really wanted to try and get Magnus right, so. *shrugs* There's so many possible things that could have happened after the finale, and this just my interpretation. Hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Un-betaed, all mistakes are mine etc etc. Feel free to point any grammer/spelling! Title comes from the Oh Wonder song 'Livewire', which you should all check out!
> 
> Russian Translation by [quant ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/quant/pseuds/quant) is [here!](https://ficbook.net/readfic/5000418)

“Thank you, Magnus, really - for everything,” Clary said with that painful sincerity of hers, eyes shining, with her arms still wrapped tightly around Jocelyn. 

The little family of Clary, Jocelyn, and Luke were gathered in their own intimate bubble in the middle of the Institute; they were an obvious, close picture of three, forever bonded to each other and determined to never let go. The sight of them pulled something tight that lived deep in Magnus’ chest but he pulled on a truthful smile. He was glad for Clary and for Luke, that they had the person they loved most back with them. It was just - he shook himself internally. Best not think about that right now. 

“Oh, it’s quite alright,” Magnus said with an urbane wave of his hand. “Long overdue, wouldn’t you say?” 

“You can say that again,” Luke affirmed, seemingly unable to take his eyes off Jocelyn for more than a few seconds. 

“I should - leave you to it, shall I?” Magnus said, trying for wry, but landing awkwardly on uncomfortable. This day just kept throwing him off and he wasn’t particularly fond of it. Not at all fond of it, in fact. He wanted to be done with it. 

“Thank you, Magnus,” Jocelyn said quietly with a gentle smile, huddled comfortably between her love and her daughter. 

Magnus coughed lightly and nodded at them before turning on his heel, driven by the urge to return home, to the safety of his own territory. However, he almost immediately ran straight into Isabelle. 

“Magnus!” She exclaimed before warm concern coloured her face. “Are you looking for Alec?” 

Truthfully, he hadn’t been. Their brief conversation before waking up Jocelyn had left him, once again, unsure on where he stood with the twenty-something shadowhunter. Alec was a new, deep ache inside Magnus that had a strong but precarious grip on him. Like a pendulum, he kept swinging between wanting to hide from Alec and wanting to seek him out. And like that, with Isabelle’s harmless question, the pendulum swung. 

“Yes, actually,” Magnus blurted out, a little too loudly in the quiet, efficient bustle of the Institute. “You don’t know where he might happen to be?” 

“Either in his room or the Infirmary,” Isabelle said, tucking a touch pad under her arm. “I think he wanted to check on Lydia.” 

“How is our impressive Clave envoy doing?” Magnus asked, before Isabelle could swan off. Once again, the pendulum shifted slightly. Magnus wanted to figure things out with Alec before he left, find out if there was still something there, if that first date was still on the table. He wanted to talk to Alec. He _always_ wanted to talk to Alec. 

But - perhaps Alec did not want to talk to him. After all, his brother and parabatai (the person he loved most, Magnus distinctly remembered) had disappeared into a portal with one of the most dangerous shadowhunters in Nephilim history. Who also happened to be Jace’s father. Alec, most likely, wanted to be left alone. 

“She’s recovering pretty quickly,” Isabelle assured, heartfelt, but there was something pained and sad lurking at the edges of her dark eyes. Magnus remembered that Jace had been her brother, too. “She just needs rest. I’ll let you find Alec, Magnus.” She twisted a soft smile towards Magnus and made to walk away. 

“Do you think he wants to talk to me?” Magnus couldn’t help but ask, quietly, and Isabelle looked over her shoulder, blinking wide eyes. She frowned slightly and stared at him a while before speaking. 

“I think,” Isabelle started slowly, “I think he always wants to talk to you.” 

And with that, Isabelle smiled as bright as she could and sauntered confidently away. Magnus felt his eyebrows raise as a smile tugged at his mouth. _Lightwoods_. Always so surprising. 

****

As Isabelle said, Magnus found Alec in the Institute’s Infirmary. Casting a little subtle magic to keep his presence unnoticed, he stood at the edge of the frosted glass screens that sectioned off where Lydia had been placed. She was sleeping peacefully, however many _iratzes_ burning away on her skin. Alec sat by her bed, elbows on his knees and large hands linked. He looked - burnt out, a fuse that was ready to sputter out for good. Exhausted and drained from a day probably worse than Magnus’. Yet, he was still beautiful, full lips pursed and eyes downcast. It was nice, to be able to look at Alec without the pressure of Alec looking back. No matter how much he liked Alec’s attention. 

Still, after a long moment, Magnus sighed silently and cast away his little spell. Gently, he knocked a little pattern on the wood of the privacy screen. Alec looked up and - perhaps a little surprisingly - smiled that soft smile that pulled hard to one side.

“Hey,” Alec said quietly. “I thought you would have left by now.” 

“I can -” Magnus swallowed thickly around the words and gestured, hopefully flippantly, behind him. 

“No, no,” Alec rushed to say, clasped hands twisting and a slight flush blooming across the smooth planes of his face. “That’s not - not what I meant, I’m sorry. Of course you can stay.” 

Magnus only nodded in reply, a little fondly amused despite himself. He stood at the foot of Lydia’s infirmary bed, arms folded, holding himself in. 

“How is she doing?” Magnus realised he’d just asked this question to Isabelle but he lacked for anything better to say. 

“She’s stable,” Alec said, before he stood up from his seat and rubbed his hands on his pants, as if they were sweaty. “She should wake up tomorrow.” 

“I’m pleased to hear it,” Magnus said genuinely and caught Alec’s eye. No matter how tall and confident a leader Alec could appear, there was still something inexplicably bashful about him that drew Magnus in. 

However, Alec didn’t shy away from the eye contact and held it. That kind of contrary willfulness drew him in just as much. For a moment, Magnus was blinded by the memory of Alec kissing him, no holds barred, in front of a whole wedding congregation. He wanted that feeling again, that passion and tenderness to flow between them again. It was still there; Magnus could feel it trailing burning paths across his skin with Alec just looking at him. Yet there was now an awkward barrier between caused by Camille. Fucking _Camille_ , of all people. Though maybe Magnus shouldn’t be so surprised - Camille had always been unfairly talented at showing up at exactly the right time to do exactly the wrong thing. 

“We should -” Alec and Magnus said at the same time, the action both oddly in sync and oddly out of it. 

Magnus coughed, briefly wishing he could better hide his emotions when confronted with Alexander Lightwood, before determination washed through him. Camille could go fuck herself. Easier said when she wasn't dancing around him but he wasn’t interested in letting her sly, parasitic presence ruin what he had - what he _could_ have - with Alec before they’d even had their first official date. 

“We should talk,” Magnus offered up gently, gesturing towards Alec with the forefinger adorned with his rather magnificent finger cuff. 

“Yeah, we should,” Alec agreed softly, though nothing truly telling showed on his face. Alec was frustratingly unreadable at times, Magnus had to admit. 

Together, they left the Infirmary, leaving Lydia to sleep and heal. Magnus let Alec led him through the Institute in silence until they reached what must be the residential wing and Alec’s bedroom. Magnus took a moment to look around, endlessly curious about Alec and his ways. The bedroom was neat and spartan, decorated in masculine shades of dark grey and blue, with a large bed set between two worn stone pillars that held up the high ceiling. Nonetheless, there was certain personal touches. A Lightwood family photograph on the nightstand. One just of Alec, Isabelle, and Jace - only a couple years younger than they were now. A still-open closet largely occupied by a lot of _black_ , in various combinations of cotton and leather. Perhaps the thing that stirred Magnus’ curiousity the most was the large oak bookcase, close to being precariously full. 

Alec sat down on the leather couch that sat under a narrow stained glass window and gestured for Magnus to sit down next to him with a tired smile. Magnus sat where Alec had gestured but was careful not to invade Alec’s space and ended up fiddling with one his rings. Alec spoke first, which wasn’t surprising in and of itself, but what he said caught Magnus off guard and sent dread flooding up his throat. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“....Sorry for what, exactly?” Magnus asked, pushing past the thickness in his throat. 

He hoped it wasn’t a the type of ‘sorry’ he was used to: sorry but we’d never work, sorry but being with you is too hard, sorry but true love is for mortals and their delusions. Then again, Camille never had had the capacity to apologise for her mind games. Alec sighed, heavily, and Magnus held his breath. 

“Sorry for - for not being able to stop hurting you,” Alec said it like it was obvious, gesturing aimlessly with his clasped hands. “It seems like I’m constantly making you leave and I have no idea what to say to make you stay.” 

“Alexander,” Magnus said softly, letting the name roll of his tongue, and followed the motion of Alec’s Adam’s apple as he swallowed. 

He couldn’t help but be relieved, despite something in him aching at the thought of Alec burdening himself with more self-blame. 

“My immortality is not your fault. Camille’s petty games are not your fault. Your parent’s disdain is not your fault. And, if it’s worth anything, you’ve made me feel more alive than I have in several long decades, regardless of hurt.” 

Alec gazed at him with soft hazel eyes, seeming to search for the right words, for what to say next. Those gloriously large hands of his twisted together before, finally, he spoke again. Magnus stopped fiddling with one ring and started on another. 

“I just don’t want to add to your pain,” Alec said, painfully sincere. “If we do this… _thing_ , if we see where this goes, if we get past that first date and onto more dates -” 

Alec seemed to lose his train of thought, frowning in frustration at his lack of ability to articulate how he was feeling. So much had happened these past few weeks that it was sometimes hard to remember that Alec had been locked up and silent about his emotions for years until he’d made that leap only yesterday. 

“Alexander, let me tell you something,” Magnus picked up the hanging threads of the conversation, “and I urge you to listen. When you’re immortal, you have two choices. You either live, or you calcify. I can - party and drink and have sex and earn too much money but after a time, those things become… meaningless. There’s no energy to them. No purpose, no life. I’m not immune to that process. In fact, I’m fairly sure it was creeping up on me whether I knew it or not. It didn’t help that I chose to close myself off after Camille.” 

“She broke your heart,” Alec said gently. 

Magnus wanted very much to kiss him, to forget about Camille and thank Alec with his lips that he didn’t seem to be the overly jealous type. He wasn’t naive enough to think that Alec hadn’t been bothered by Camille kissing him but he was thankful for the fact that Alec seemed to understand that that had been far from Magnus’ choice. 

“She did,” Magnus affirmed quietly before moving on. “Either way, the point... is that I’ve chosen to not let that apathy, that _boredom_ , rule me. When I walked into that chapel, I was fully prepared for you to tell me to leave and never approach you again. Even then, I couldn’t convince myself not to go, not to try, not to see you one more time. And when you chose to live for yourself and kissed me to prove it, you reminded me why choosing to live was the right choice and why opening myself up to the world and to you was worth it, regardless of the fact that I have centuries behind me and quite possibly centuries ahead. Being immortal doesn’t ensure invincibility, you know, as I have been so reminded as of late.” 

The reminder of Ragnor’s death was cold and sharp but the heavy warmth of Alec’s hand grasping his brought Magnus back to reality and to the soft silence between them. Magnus had been staring out at Alec’s spartan bedroom through his whole emotional diatribe but Alec’s hand over his had him turning his gaze to Alec’s face, which was both soft in sincerity and stern in determination. 

“I _really_ want to go on that date with you,” Alec said with a helpless little half-smile and Magnus’ heart lifted as he exhaled a trembling breath. 

“I was hoping you would say that,” Magnus admitted quietly into the suddenly crippling distance between them. 

That half-smile widened into something brighter and before Magnus could register the stutter of his heart, Alec had leaned over to close the distance between them to press a warm, firm kiss to Magnus’ cheek. It lasted only a few seconds but Magnus flushed quickly with warmth, Alec’s brief touch of lips to skin a spark. 

Alexander Lightwood was going to be the death of him, Magnus was certain. 

What Alec had said may have been short, a little abrupt, and an attempt to shoulder past the barrier now dissolving between them, but Magnus understood Alec. Understood that Alec was still willing to try and venture into what would they could become. That though Magnus’ immortality and Alec’s mortality would never disappear from Alec’s mind, he wouldn’t prematurely give up on the possibility of something wonderful. And though he no longer felt as if he had to convince Alec of anything, Magnus was impatient to show Alec the _possibilities_. He wanted to whisk Alec away for a while, away from the Institute and all its back-breaking stress, wanted to see Alec unwind in the pleasure of Magnus’ company alone. 

And, well, why not? He wasn’t Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn, for nothing. He never had been the type to have an inspirational thought and let it go. Ask anyone who had spent more time than an hour with him. 

“I have an idea,” Magnus exclaimed, bursting with sudden vigour, and jumped up from his seat. _Elegantly_ jumped, mind you. “C’mon, stand up.” 

“Why?” Alec questioned, always wary, looking slightly bemused by Magnus’ behaviour. 

“It’s a surprise,” Magnus answered, lifting an eyebrow with a vague shrug of his body. “A good surprise, mind you, but a surprise nonetheless.” 

Alec’s brow pulled together and his eye squinted in that way it did when he didn’t quite understand what was going on. Nevertheless, he slowly stood up and followed Magnus into the middle of the room. Magnus needed a little bit of space for this. He twirled on his heel to face Alec, who was standing strong and sedate with his arms by his sides. The bemused look had yet to fade completely from his face. Claiming back some of his signature boldness, Magnus lifted on to his toes (Alec was so _tall_ : it pained Magnus in both good and bad ways) and ghosted his lips close to Alec’s. It wasn’t a kiss, not even a touch, merely a sharing of breath but Alec’s eyes widened, pupils dilating and eyebrows rising slightly. 

“Close your eyes,” Magnus whispered and thrilled at the way Alec’s eyes kept themselves trained on the movement of his lips. 

“Why?” Alec asked again. Magnus caught the brief glimmer of playfulness in Alec’s expression and had to stop himself from kissing Alec right then. _Not yet_ , he affirmed to himself, delighted at the fact Alec wanted to kiss him but was willing to play along with Magnus’ whims. 

“Surprise, remember?” Magnus said lightly. “Don’t you trust me?” 

“Of course,” Alec responded immediately, as if it was as ingrained in Alec as his sense of duty or his love for his family. 

God, they were so close, it would be so easy, and Magnus wanted to so very much… But no, not yet. Still, he had to work harder to hold himself together this time. Alec kept undoing him in the biggest and simplest of ways. Behind his back, Magnus gathered magic in the palm of his hand, ready to burst out and unfold a door in space-time. 

“Close your eyes,” Magnus repeated, softly, and this time Alec obeyed, dark eyelashes fluttering against pale cheeks. “And think of Paris.” 

Alec started to frown, mouth ready to form a question, but Magnus was too quick. He clicked his fingers and a portal burst into existence, purple and shimmering. He pulled Alec into that kiss he’d wanted all day and the portal folded over them, whirling them across an ocean, far away from the Institute.

**Author's Note:**

> Fear not, I will be writing their date in Paris. Also, I've got a longer AU fic in the works that maybe should keep a lookout for? 
> 
> Come have fun on [tumblr!](http://www.queermagnus.tumblr.com)


End file.
